Chicago Real Estate News

Pockets of distress in the South Side’s multifamily market are bubbling to the surface and revealing deep cracks in the Chicago real estate industry.

A group of investors recently found to be on a secret “blacklist” cut off from doing business with Fannie Mae poured at least $100 million into Chicagoland real estate from 2017 to 2022, and then ran their buildings into the ground. Some were convicted of criminal real estate-related fraud in Michigan and Ohio, while they faced foreclosure and housing court lawsuits in Illinois. See how Real Tactics Pro tracked down their Chicago holdings.

Further, Wisconsin-based investor Trinity Flood is now facing foreclosure of a trio of South Shore buildings purchased in 2020 for $18 million as part of a portfolio of properties that also include apartments in Arizona and Georgia. The landlord is in danger of losing all the buildings to a CMBS special servicer; the servicer filed a lawsuit that could lead to the lender seizing the buildings.

Office distress remains rampant in the Chicago area, too.

In a stunning 95 percent discount, Fort Worth, Texas-based Woodcrest Capital paid just $ 6.1 million, or $7 per square foot, for the vacant former Aon office campus in suburban Lincolnshire. The property, spanning more than 800,000 square feet, last fetched $148 million in 2012. The landlord teased that it might offer rock-bottom rents of just $8 per square foot to big tenants.

Blackstone also made a move to seize the financially troubled Magnificent Mile office tower at 444 North Michigan Avenue in Chicago through a deed in lieu of foreclosure. The former owners, Golub & Company and CIM Group, surrendered the property in order to settle a $123 million loan.

On the politics front, see where the National Association of Realtors-backed political fund run by the organization’s state branch Illinois Realtors spent money in this month’s spring elections — and how many of their candidates won and lost.

In the residential market, high-end sellers in Park Tower shaved their asking price to $7.7 million, down by about 36 percent since they last tried listing the condo in 2016. The new price would still mark the highest price per square foot in the building, if it closes at the ask.